Pisa – The leaning Tower really does lean

After leaving Nice, we headed down to Florence. But before we got there we stopped at Pisa for just over an hour. Now me, when I imagine the leaning tower, I always imagine it having a slight lean but nothing compared to what I saw. That thing leans like no ones business. I mean, when you look at the building around it, it is a wonder that it is still standing. I must have taken about 30 photos from various angles trying to catch the lean (no pun intended). They had heaps and heaps of stalls and if it weren’t for my tightening of space in my bag I would have come away from there with leaning cups, statuettes, leaning shot glasses. I did the obligatory photo trying to hold up the tower and another where I am actually holding the tower in my hand. Looks a bit photo-shopped but I swear it is not.

Everywhere we looked there were also big Nigerian dudes trying to sell us umbrellas and scarfs and paintings. They will follow you if you look at them, or make any sort of acknowledgement of what they are selling, so basically we don’t We have become very good at using our peripheral vision to see them coming.

We drove into Florence in the evening and then we had a Tuscan evening.

The Italians, the love to eat... more than the French I think. And they looooove their carbs. Breads and pastas of every kind. To give you can idea about what our dinner looked like. We stared off with some bread and oil, followed by dinner plate of salad and bruchetta, bread covered with cheese, and bread covered with chickpeas, followed by a full dinner plate of lasagne and pasta with pomodora sauce, followed by a full dinner plate of more salad and meat. Lots of meat. Followed by desert. I could only stare at it. I couldn't force it in. The whole lot was washed down with HUGE bottles of wine. Each bottle was 1.5 litres! Took two hands to pour it. Pretty impressive.

Florence – the city of statues and suspicious fishermen
Florence. Amazing but definitely somewhere to go back to. We didn’t have long there. Half a day was all we had, but it was a morning well spent. I learnt how to tell the difference between real and fake leather at a tannery. I bought a ring that is unique to Florence. It is a puzzle ring. They were said to be used by fishermen in the old days. They would give the rings to their wives while they were away at sea and when they came back they would know if their wife had been unfaithful to him because when you take the ring off it falls apart. The ring is made up of 4 rings that all interlock together to form a shape similar to a celtic knot. Apparently wives didn’t know how to put the rings back together so if they took it off to have an affair their men would know when they returned. I liked the story, and the ring is very cool. A few of us decided to try and see Michelangelo’s David. Alas, we didn’t get that far but we did find the street markets. I tried to haggle but I failed and didn’t have enough money at the time to pay so I gave the hat back. Sigh. I still think about that hat. Hahaha. We had hot chocolate at a cafe or Kaffee, as I keep seeing it spelt, and took a butt load of photos of hot statue bods.

We were due to depart Florence at midday. It is another place that I will come back to. After all, I didn’t get to see David’s amazing bum. Next stop, Rome...